Might as well go for broke

Although two grief poems in one night seems somewhat excessive, I wanted to start letting go of this one as soon as possible. Sometimes it really is better to share.

Phases of Grief: A Misnomer

It seems like it's been such a long time since we said a casual hello,
And I miss the sound of your voice.
With each passing day it gets harder to go back to where we were,
Each day takes me farther from where we were.
Without even realizing it, I have boxed you up in my head - or, rather, preserved you perfectly in a glass case I can visit when I get lonely.

Only it's not so perfect, because I keep forgetting the important things.
In all this time we have stagnated and I've been forced to recognize the nature of death is the absence of growth.

Every now and again I think of you and I am filled with white hot rage that threatens to burn me forever.
I want to know why no one told me that death could be so ugly. I had such unrealistic expectations of peaceful goodbyes and dinner plate sized sunglasses hiding all those tears that wouldn't fall.
Nothing prepared me or anyone else to watch you starve to death no matter how many blueberry sno-cones we brought you.
Some things I had right in my head: at some point the news does make your knees buckle,
At some point you're convinced everyone else is wrong and you just have to believe,
At some point you dream of dieing just to escape the pain.

When I am sleeping and the phone rings, my heart races before my brain even wakes up.
My soul remembers what is was like when they called to tell me you were going to die, and then called to tell that you did.
Sometimes I have the intense desire to throw the phone across the room just to watch it break.

I had this weird thought train that led me to your body, confined in a box, a concrete vault, hidden underground, fighting the natural processes with preservatives and progress.
It's too much like the box you live in in my head, and I want to dig you up and set you free.
But I'm too afraid to be left alone with my rage

No one deserves any of this, but it comes anyway - too often without obvious cause or responsibility.
I can live with your death because I have to, but no one told that I would always sometimes get angry.

I found a place to put it...

I wrote this a few months back, right around the 9th anniversary of my mom's death.

Platitudes

I lived in a house with a mother who had lost her mother, who could sometimes be found at 2 am sitting in the dark and crying, brushing us away with "You can't understand."

And then I became a mother who lost her mother and I did.

And when I close my eyes I can still see her vanity; glowing strawberry blond and fixed firmly in place with half a can of aerosol hairspray, curls bouncing with each firm step as if the hairdo said everything.
When it sneaks up on me I remember how she cut it all off before chemo and I'm still not sure if it was fear or defiance.
The big C was a hollowing experience for each of us, taking something that nearly a decade later we can only barely grasp.

Except at 2 am, when I was taught to mourn.

And in defiance...

On the Warning Label
I found myself this past year wandering through life in such a frustrating, disorganized way I was afraid I would get lost altogether.
So I listed my resources, circled the wagons, and went on medication.
After awhile, I could focus better and occasionally clean the bathroom while not feeling too guilty about how dirty it had gotten since the last time.
In the medicated time, a certain new clarity came to me, as if the medicine was a pair of psychological reading glasses.
I experienced breakthroughs, epiphanies, and even the rare moment of acceptance.

But the medicated time has passed, like all eras eventually do.
That clarity so enabled by the medicine has given way to confusion and forgetfulness as I try to leave the era behind.
As I move through this gradual withdrawal I wonder if it would be any worse than stopping abruptly - as my skin itches and my forehead expands with the need for this
Enslavement.
I don't see much point in drawing it out like this, in slowly denying my body this substance it has come to crave
But They all tell me it's for the best, this way.
I loved the clarity of medication and expected it to continue without each pill every day.
I feel cheated by Them, by the medicine, and by my own mind as I struggle to remember to put the clean, wet clothes in the dryer before they start to smell a little musty.
If I had known the horror of the end of the era, I may not have embarked down this path at all.

Honestly, I must admit that without this chemical interruption,
I might have failed in this altogether.

Internet: The way to limitation?

Lately I've been considering offering up my poetry to a few contests. I've got lots of reasons for this, but that's not at all the point. I've been sifting a little each week to find the journals that I like, that I might have a chance in, that just might like me. And the more I read, the more I see certain fine print, which disallows any previously published work - even work published on the internet.

I've been wondering about this. I suppose it's really an attempt to address the e-zine community. Because, really, does my little blog really matter? Am I completely ruining myself by randomly posting what's on my mind, even if it's in poetry form?

After much thought, I've decided not to care. If they don't like my self-published-on the internet-poem, I suppose I don't like them, either.

So there. :)

The Etiquette of Blogging

Maybe some more experienced blogger can let me know - am I creating some kind of terrible blogging faux pas by not creating catchy titles to all my posts? Frankly, sometimes I just don't feel like being catchy.

I actually wonder if there is such a thing as blogging etiquette.

Hmmm. Catchy. Damn the jingle oriented materialistic society.

[Of which, I happily participate in. Anyone out there who doesn't know the Oscar Meyer Bologna tune?]

Fumbling

Fumbling

I was trying to explain something important to me when I realized that I was ruining the whole thing with my words.
I hated the irony of the moment.
For these years I have breathed for the chance to speak, spoke for the chance to be heard, heard for the chance to be understood.
Yet I find I talk so much I lose touch with the thought altogether.

I would like to poll the average housewife and ask her if her mind is ever quiet;
The career woman if her roller coaster ever stops;
The collegiate if she ever finds time to breathe;
The teenager if she understands anything to come,
As if the conglomerate of the answers would somehow show me the way.
Lacking the fortitude to survey anyone, I repeat "Always be joyful. Give thanks whatever happens," while holding tight to whatever may bear the weight.
I pray.

My daughter has caught a cold...

My Apologies

I spent today wanting to hold you, to offer you that comfort you found only in my arms, to quiet that incessant cry, to just love you
But
Also to walk away from all of your need, to lose your cry in my own necessities, to let someone else take your responsibility.
And so I held you; and so I walked away.

I am not sure that I can ever be enough, give enough, love enough for you. On the bad days it feels like rampant failure.
When you gaze at me with such trust there's an echo of my head that lectures me on being better, being more.
I don't deserve that trust you hold so casually.

On the good days I can hold you close and chase away your ills.
And I can almost believe that I have been trustworthy enough -
Or that if I have not, you will forgive me.

Dreaming of a Kansas Sky

Muse-d: Some vague day in 2005 - or maybe early 2006. Most definitely before now.

Dreaming of a Kansas Sky

I was standing in your apartment, watching the rising sun lighten the sky. We were talking, casually, drinking coffee and having a quick bite, and generally doing what people do in these situations. I turned my back to you to fully see the sky when the black line began to descend on us.

I yelled for you to run,
For us to run,
As that black line of clouds filled the sky.
Nothing that dark -
Running that hard -
Menacing that thoroughly -
Could be safe and before I could take a step, one giant funnel cloud spun together and began eating up the earth.

It tore a jagged line, visible from miles away, and I could feel the rending in my bones. I gasped and fell to my knees. When I turned, you were gone. When I blinked, the sky was pale blue and the earth was unharmed.

My coffee had grown cold and my breakfast lay forgotten. Your apartment was empty again. I cleaned up our dishes, gathered my things, and quietly locked the door behind me.

The regularity of these violent storms is frightening to me. When you asked me why I moved away, my explanation was that I was too afraid of Kansas. That answer hurt us both a little less.

Help, help, I'm being... Encouraged

Recently I have found myself being, well, pushed into using this silly little blog that has been rotting away in cyber land. I was surprised that some date related system hadn't purged this business entirely.*

But having discovered that this silly thing still exists, I've made a half hearted goal of randomly doing something with it.

Hey, we all have to have goals.

*We occasionally catch the TV show "Dirty Jobs" on the Discovery Channel. One recent episode featured a recycling plant that processes food through a giant steel drum type device. This device must occasionally be cleaned and that certainly qualifies as a 'dirty job.' I expected this blog to have been thoroughly processed, but instead it seems to have gotten caught and trapped in one way or another. So here I am, scraping it off.

Now you know why my shoes smell.